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Session:         Page of 592

Q:

Let's hold that for just a second. A couple of things occur to me. First of all, you're talking --

Foner:

'51, '52. I come to 1199 in '54, in September '54, so I'm there. I may have upped my date. I have started too early, because I left in '54. I don't think I was in 65 more than two years, at the most, and maybe two years before, so it may be '50 that I first start in the labor movement, closer to that, '49, '50.

Q:

So you come into the labor movement at the very point at which it's under a fierce attack?

Foner:

I'm in department stores at the time of the Wallace campaign, so I'm there in '48.

Q:

Okay.

Foner:

Because I'm there in the Wallace campaign.

Q:

Okay. So that is the period, at a time when the unions are being driven out, there's a fight over the Marshall Plan.

Foner:

Yes.

Q:

The left is being isolated.

Foner:

But remember, 65 is like an island. It still has its membership and its strength.

Q:

How big was it?

Foner:

At that time, maybe 65 was around fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, maybe. It's a big union, it's an important union. It's not an industry. A department store could have been, but they never made it there. Michaelson and Livingston couldn't get along, so Michaelson pulled the department store people away.

Q:

I want to talk about that, but maybe next time. You speak, though, still even as if the Taft-Hartley stuff isn't even happening. What is the impact?

Foner:

It's happening. It's happening. I remember votes on signing the affidavits in 1250, that the members supported the union, not to sign it.

[END OF SESSION THREE]





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